The present invention relates to design and construction of a mini and compact optical disc autoloader. By way of a flip-flop device positioned and pivoted between two disc trays, the robotic arm movement is simplified to a one-dimensional linear fashion and greatly reduces the cost of production and also cost of maintenance. The present invention also allows for multiple write drives to be easily built into present invention, creating an efficient duplicating system. It can be used for the home and small business environment for small volume optical duplication, storage and management.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A disc duplicator comprising: a main tower body having built-in power supply unit; a user interface with LCD screen on the top side of said main tower body; a controller and motor unit situated inside and near the top of said main tower body; a write drive below said controller and motor unit; a harddrive below said write drive; a USB port at back of said main tower body; a drawer at bottom of said main tower body that can be pulled out and further having one inner tray and one outer tray with two vertical walls adjacent to each other, separating the two tray areas; a flip-flop having a bottom end pivotably hinged to the top of the wall of the outer tray; and, a robotic arm with a built-in grab/release picker head that moves along an up-down linear track, so that at the beginning of a duplication session, the flip-flop is flipped to lean against the vertical wall of the inner tray, and the remaining duplication process becomes automatic without any human intervention.
2. The duplicator of claim 1 , wherein said flip-flop has a solid end and a open end where a U-shaped cutout allows the picker head of the robotic arm to pass through in the up-down linear fashion, when said flip-flop is in the flipped up position resting on the vertical wall of the inner tray, allowing the blank disc grabbed on by the robotic arm to push up said flip-flop to a flip-temp status that has an angle higher than that of the flip-flop resting at the flip-up position.
3. The duplicator of claim 2 , wherein said flip-flop has bottom connectors on the solid end of for pivotally attaching to the top of said vertical wall of the outer tray.
4. The duplicator of claim 3 , wherein said vertical walls of the two tray areas are set to approximately same height, resulting in the flip-flop to have a down-resting position and a flip-up position, whereby the angle at flip-up position allows a disc to slide towards the outer tray when the write head releases a disc after the write drive tray is fully retracted into the main tower body.
5. The duplicator of claim 4 , wherein additional write drives are fitted into the room above said harddrive, along with the proportional total height adjustment of main tower body and the proportional length of the up-down linear track for the robotic arm to travel.
6. The duplicator of claim 4 , where a cooling fan is placed near the back of said main tower body, to provide air circulation and heat dissipation.
7. The duplicator of claim 6 , wherein the bottom connectors of said flip-flop are a pair of dowels on two sides of said flip-flop, with the top of outer wall having corresponding holes for insertion, allowing manual pivoting of said flip-flop.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
August 8, 2008
November 16, 2010
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